Aave is a decentralized finance protocol that allows people to lend and borrow crypto.

Lenders earn interest by depositing digital assets into specially created liquidity pools. Borrowers can then use their crypto as collateral to take out a flash loan using this liquidity.

Aave (which means “ghost” in Finnish) was originally known as ETHLend when it launched in November 2017, but the rebranding to Aave happened in September 2018. (This helps explain why this token’s ticker is so different from its name!)

AAVE provides holders with discounted fees on the platform, and it also serves as a governance token — giving owners a say in the future development of the protocol.

Aave, and its predecessor ETHLend, were founded by Stani Kulechov. At the time, he was frustrated at the lack of lending applications on Ethereum — and his project was built before decentralized finance even existed.

Kulechov is a serial entrepreneur who went to law school and began programming when he was a teenager. He was an early adopter in the blockchain space. The CEO has said that he wanted to rebrand ETHLend as Aave so the company could offer a wider range of services beyond Ether lending.

According to Kulechov, Aave’s main target market are people who are already engaged in the cryptocurrency community.